22 November 10
Innovation Cubed Conference
Have you ever wondered how to better make use of emerging social media tools to discover new internal process or product innovations? As new communication tools gain popularity, we are seeing an increasing number of internal and market driven innovations brought to life. Specifically, an important aspect of social media that is driving this change is crowdsourcing, which acts as a rich repository of ideas coming from both inside of your company as well as your customers. If you are looking to better leverage crowdsourcing tools or want to hear from today’s leading companies on the subject, consider the newest addition to World Research Group’s Open Innovation Series: INNOVATION3: Crowdsourcing, Culture, and Tools Summit. Read the rest of this entry »
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New Business Process | Tagged: Conference, crowdsourcing, innovation, social media | 
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Posted by Doron Yaghoubi
29 October 10
Adapted from Amazon.com
Here at futurethink, we’ve been researching various smartphone applications to feature in our newest resource list on mobile tools that can help support your innovation strategy. These applications focus on features ranging from capturing ideas on the go, connecting and collaborating with various project members, to cloud storage systems, and brainstorming tools. This got us thinking; what would our ideal innovation focused smartphone application look like? While applications that try to be everything for everyone are generally doomed to mediocrity, if we had unlimited resources to design the ideal innovation application, here is where we would start.
Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged: apps, innovation, smartphone | Permalink
Posted by Doron Yaghoubi
27 October 10
Forward-thinking companies use social media for more than just creative marketing campaigns. These companies harness the power of social media to promote a culture that fosters innovation, empowers effective collaboration with customers and partners, and streamlines idea development channels. But, how are they doing this?
1) Empower Employee Collaboration — Your employees are social media savvy. They’re sharing their opinions and ideas on Facebook and Twitter right now. So why not capture this creativity by offering a forum for work-related conversation and collaboration?
More than 60,000 companies are now using Yammer, a software program that enables the creation of private, internal social networks. Using a social media platform to open up the lines of communication in your company can lead to a more engaged — and more innovative — workforce. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | New Brand Experience, Retail, Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged: Best Buy, facebook, Gap logo, innovation, social media, Twitter, whole foods, Yammer | Permalink
Posted by Jenny Wang
27 August 10
“Our model is to increase employee freedom as we grow, rather than limit it, to continue to attract and nourish innovative people, so we have a better chance of long-term continued success.”
– Netflix CEO Reed Hastings
To become more innovative, companies need to cultivate the key elements necessary for innovation— one of which is an innovation-friendly culture. To build a corporate climate that truly fosters innovation, you must be able to encourage smart risks and energize your workforce. Netflix, one of Fortune Magazine’s 100 fastest growing companies of 2010, does exactly this by promoting a culture of freedom and responsibility from the top down. The company’s commitment to these principles goes far beyond just a values statement chiseled in marble.
• Freedom — Netflix does not have a vacation policy and doesn’t track vacation time. Employees may take as many vacation days as they feel they need. When it comes to expenses and business travel, the only rule is to “act in Netflix’s best interests.”
• You Have to Believe — Netflix also requires that all employees take responsibility for contributing to the company’s success. High performers are substantially rewarded and the merely adequate are quickly let go.
Sound harsh? According to Hastings, “We need a culture that supports rapid innovation and excellent execution. Both are required for continuous growth. There is tension between these two goals: between creativity and discipline.”
How has balancing creativity and discipline paid off for Netflix? Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Media & Entertainment, Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged: Corporate Culture, creativity, innovation, Netflix | Permalink
Posted by Jenny Wang
28 June 10
According to a recent policy brief by the Brookings Institution, improvements to the American educational system are essential to stimulating economic productivity at both the national and individual levels. While many are calling for government-led transformation of the US educational system, others aren’t waiting around for policy change. Instead, enterprising organizations such as the following are playing an active role in re-imagining learning.
1. The Blue School – A few years ago, the founders of the Blue Man Group were unsatisfied with the current private school offerings in NYC and created a new educational experience for their children and the city’s youths. Their school, The Blue School, provides an educational experience where students are not narrowly focused on college applications, but instead work on developing their creative, artistic, and cognitive skills. The children even have a hand in directing the curriculum, which attempts to integrate what children want to learn with what adults want to impart. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Education, Foresight, Futurism, Uncategorized | Tagged: Blue Man Group, Brookings Institution, education, innovation, innovation in education, Microsoft's High School of the Future, singularity university, The Blue School | Permalink
Posted by Jenny Wang
24 May 10
There has been a lot of recent innobuzz about crowd-sourcing and looking outside for innovation. Both techniques have their place in idea generation, but what about the people who know your products the best? You know, your employees. Now, I am not saying you need to launch an innovation center like Bayer is to come up with the next big idea (albeit if you can, go for it), but rather think about ways you can grow or enhance your business from within.
The following are some companies who have successfully looked inside to innovate:
- Southwest Airlines: Southwest is using an idea management software tool to capture their employee’s ideas on improving and bettering
processes. This web-based ideation tool allows employees in different geographic locations and of different levels to share ideas and work together to problem solve. Bringing internal minds together has enabled Southwest to improve internal processes and create efficiencies.
- Intuit: Intuit gives their employees 10% of unstructured time during their workweek (Google does something similar). During this time, Intuit employees are allowed t
o collaborate with others in order to develop new ideas. Viable products such as viewmypaycheck.intuit.com are results of such unstructured time. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Automotive & Transportation, Government, New Brand Experience, New Product or Service, Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged: Employees for Innovation, innovation, Intuit, Southwest, TSA | Permalink
Posted by Meredith Stowe
11 May 10
I got off the S
ubway a stop early this morning to see a new installation in Bryant Park. The exhibit, Walk the Walk, consists of seven women all dressed in the same yellow dresses, walking around on an elevated yellow platform. The women shuffle around with indifference to their routine, expressionless with nowhere to go but around and around.
When I read first read about this exhibit in the New York Times, it made me think about how we often get stuck in our routine. It also made me think about how the practice of innovation pushes us outside these comfort zones. It’s not easy for most of us to step out of our day to day. Efficiency has been the way of the working world. (Although in some cases the act of efficiency is innovation.) Efficiency, however, does not afford us to take the time to ponder and explore the “what if’s”. Taking the time to do such exploration is not the obvious direct route to
greener pastures.
There are simple things one can do to break out of the daily grind. Every once in a while I try to take a different route to work so that I can be exposed to new things; just doing something small can expose one to new possibilities. A lot of what we teach here at futurethink is about how to step out of our boxes, how to explore the seemingly impossible and escape the monotony of the day to day.
To better innovate, we must avoid being the woman in the yellow dress.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bryant Park exhibit, Efficiency, innovation, New York Times, Walk the Walk | Permalink
Posted by Meredith Stowe
5 May 10
As part of our ongoing Innovator Interview series we interviewed John Jackson, President of the Police Futures International (PFI) and a member of the Houston Police Department. PFI is 
an organization whose mission is to prepare police forces for the long term via planning and foresight tools. (how cool is that?)
In this interview, Jackson discusses some of his effective forecasting techniques, the organizational challenges he faces and his insights on how one can drive innovation. At first, it may not be clear how a government organization relates to those of you who work in the private sector. And even Jackson differentiates between the private sector and public sector’s focus on innovation – the former is concerned with “profit and efficiency” and the latter with “equality and representation”. Regardless, the insight and foresight tools Jackson provides within can be applied to most organizations looking to become more future focused.
Read on to see an excerpt from his interview or download a full version for free. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Foresight, Futurism, Government, Uncategorized | Tagged: Foresight, Futuring, Government, innovation, Innovator, John Jackson, Police Futurists International | Permalink
Posted by Meredith Stowe
28 April 10
Companies of all sizes and from all industries can innovatively define a path for their organization’s future by broadening perspectives and pushing employees to generate forward thinking ideas. Many tactics and techniques can be used to inject forward thinking behavior, such as including inviting thought leaders to speak on a regular basis, establishing article exchanges, and sending teams to gather new information and insights from conferences.
Next week, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovation experts will gather together at the 8th annual Front End of Innovation Conference in Boston. This conference, which has become the number one industry event for provoking change, exchanging best practices, and defining next practices, is a destination for all things innovation. Sessions throughout the three days will cover a range of innovation topics, including user-inspired innovation, service innovation, eco-innovation, collaborative innovation, technology led innovation, inspiring innovation, scenario planning and measurement & metrics. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: collaboration, FEI2010, Front End of Innovation, innovation, innovation conference | Permalink
Posted by Jenny Wang
23 April 10
In honor of Earth Day, the futurethink team took some time to evaluate our own carbon footprints. Using Global Footprint Network’s eco footprint calculator, we each answered a smattering of lifestyle-related questions and a few minutes later, ended up with an estimate of how many planet earths it would take to support our lifestyles (humbling enough, if everyone lived like me, it would take 5.7 earths to provide enough resources!). We found that simple actions such as eating less red meat can help us reduce our carbon footprint. Beyond this, there are innovative companies that have created products to help us further reduce our footprint. The following are some clever eco- innovations that we’ve spotted lately:
1. One easy way to reduce your carbon footprint is to switch from disposable household products to reusable ones. Monte-Bianco, a Canadian company, has developed an innovative product that is not only eco-friendly, but also makes economic sense. The Monte-Bianco clip offers you the familiarity of a standard toothbrush handle, with the additional flexibility of disposable brush heads that snap in and out. There are even two options for bristles – vegan friendly nylon and natural boar’s hair. The brush heads, retailing at $5.50 for a set of three, are an inexpensive alternative to replacing your toothbrush every time. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Consumer Packaged Goods, New Brand Experience, New Product or Service | Tagged: carbon footprint, Consumer Packaged Goods, eco-innovation, green innovation, innovation | Permalink
Posted by Jenny Wang
